At what point are you no longer playing AD&D?

[Griffith Dragonlake]

If you added highly tactical combat, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you allowed players to purchase magical items with gp as a matter of course (using the magic item appendix as a shopping list), you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you altered the character classes to be predicated on combat prowess for the source of their game-play worth/balance, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you disallowed all spontaneous player actions because the proposed actions are not covered explicitly by the written rules, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you change the magic system to something other than the "Vancian" system, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore (psionic system notwithstanding).

If you removed all rules and setting elements that inform the humanocentric view, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore (setting-wise).

If you allowed "weird" player characters, such as half storm giant/half pixie cross breeds, giants, balrogs, dragons, etc. you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore. It should be noted that such "weirdness" does fall within the open-ended nature of the original D&D game.

 

[Delta]

In another thread I propose co-DMing is something that would go beyond the scope of being AD&D, as would those that never role dice, but story tell the entire time.

Never roll dice -- I'd agree that's not really AD&D.

But as far as co-DM'ing goes, I'm pretty sure that Gygax and Kuntz co-DM'd the original Greyhawk campaign. I believe someone reported a year ago at Gen Con Gygax was again running his game with 2 DMs.

 

[Valiant]

I think I'm using the wrong terminology to describe what I'm talking about. I was referring to groups where the role of DM is shared equally between players (each with their own DMG in hand) who every now and then tell the main DM he's doing this or that wrong rather then focusing on their PC and general immersion (its not really rules lawyering as it seems to be generally accepted by the group (kind of reminds me of how alot of 3E games work out).

I have no problem with 2 DMs running a game (like Rob and Gary running a module together, I guess thats what true Co-DMing is). In that case there still exists to sides, the DMs vs the players. Not so in what I was referring to. :\ Will have to think of another word to describe this type of group-DMing dynamic I suppose.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think that there is any single 'real' or 'authentic' AD&D experience. I think that quintisentially, AD&D is a game that each individual DM made thier own and for thier players, that was a real and authentic AD&D game.

Not rolling dice? You can play through large tracts of 'Tomb of Horrors' without the rattle of dice. One of the most memorable sessions of AD&D I ever had was pure amateur thespianism for 5 hours where the dice never hit the table once.

Highly tactical combat? I played AD&D for basically 48 hours straight without sleep where all we did was move cardboard chits around and through dice in one long enormous battle.

Human-centric? I've played two different AD&D campaigns where noone was allowed to take human as a race, and one of them none of the available races where in the core rules.

Alot of the other suggestions debunk themselves. AD&D can, as gentlegamer points out, packaged from the beginning with a non-Vancian magic system. It wouldn't be a stretch to suggest a campaign where all magic used a psionic-like system. It still would be AD&D.

Sad to say, alot of DMs ran 'monty haul' campaigns where PC's were allowed to just browse through the DMG and say 'I want to buy the Eye of Vecna'. I ran into dozens of such players at the time that thought that's how you were supposed to play. Did they IMO miss out on alot of the fun? IMO, definately yes, but I can't claim that they weren't playing AD&D. I can just mock the way that they played AD&D. Mercilessly.

Have I met hidebound DM's and players that thought that anything not explicitly mentioned in the rules wasn't possible. Unfortunately, I've met a few of those two. I never met nearly as many of those as DM's and players who'd never actually read the rules, but I certainly met both types.

The most obvious way to make it not AD&D would be to change not merely 'core' rules, since I'm not sure any single feature can claim this status especially of AD&D, but rather to change all the rules completely. For example, you could play GURPS. Then you wouldn't be playing AD&D, though concievably you could play GURPS with something of an AD&D feel. (Wouldn't be easy, but you could do it.) I've seen that happen. People will say, "I'm tired of AD&D. Let's play something else."

As a matter of pure theory, another way to make it not AD&D would be to remove the quality that makes AD&D a game from the game in some fashion so that it ceased to be a game and became something else. I've never actually witnessed this happen, and the rumors I've heard of it I've never been sure I could trust. But I admit that its possible in theory, though it would involve far bigger changes to the concept of AD&D than anyone has suggested here.

 

[airwalkrr]

...when you are playing any edition after 2nd.

 

[Victim]

Yeah, your definition of co-DMing is basically just the players knowing the rules. I think that if the DM has to hide behind a lack of player knowledge, then you're not playing ADnD.

 

[king_ghidorah]

Off the top of my head, and in my opinion:

If you added highly tactical combat, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you allowed players to purchase magical items with gp as a matter of course (using the magic item appendix as a shopping list), you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you altered the character classes to be predicated on combat prowess for the source of their game-play worth/balance, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you disallowed all spontaneous player actions because the proposed actions are not covered explicitly by the written rules, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

If you change the magic system to something other than the "Vancian" system, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore (psionic system notwithstanding).

If you removed all rules and setting elements that inform the humanocentric view, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore (setting-wise).

If you allowed "weird" player characters, such as half storm giant/half pixie cross breeds, giants, balrogs, dragons, etc. you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore. It should be noted that such "weirdness" does fall within the open-ended nature of the original D&D game.

Of course, many of these things were true in games of AD&D 1st ed I played in the early to mid 1980s, depending on people's house rules, in particular, many people I knew added:

• Highly tactical combat.
• Purchasing magic items.
• Modifying old or adding new classes based on combat prowess. (Certainly choosing classes based on this was common.)
• Disallowing sensible actions based on narrow readings of the rules.
• Non-"Vancian" magic.
• Non-"Humanocentric" level limits.
• "Weird" PCs.

To me, he hallmark of AD&D in the 1st ed. (and much more so than 2e) was a strong tendency for people to have very different campaigns and house rules from each other, so that each game ran very differently with different moods when you moved from group to group.

The fact that D&D seems to follow more consistent set of rules makes current D&D feel very different from the game I played 25+ years ago.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

...when you are playing any edition after 2nd.

Discounts the possibility of playing OD&D or BD&D. So, amend that to read:

...when you are playing any edition that doesn't have "A" in the abbreviated name before "D&D"

 

[migo]

Off the top of my head, and in my opinion:

If you added highly tactical combat, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

How high are we talking? PO Combat & Tactics added some highly tactical combat to AD&D.

If you allowed players to purchase magical items with gp as a matter of course (using the magic item appendix as a shopping list), you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

Why on earth not? I'd argue you're more not playing AD&D by disallowing it.

If you altered the character classes to be predicated on combat prowess for the source of their game-play worth/balance, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

This I agree with. Up until the end of 2E, D&D classes were created with flavour in mind.

If you disallowed all spontaneous player actions because the proposed actions are not covered explicitly by the written rules, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore.

This I agree with 100%, and is incidentally why I disagree with the buying magic items point.

If you change the magic system to something other than the "Vancian" system, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore (psionic system notwithstanding).

Player's Option Spells & Magic introduced some really cool non-Vancian systems. So I have to disagree there.

If you removed all rules and setting elements that inform the humanocentric view, you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore (setting-wise).

AD&D is a setting?

If you allowed "weird" player characters, such as half storm giant/half pixie cross breeds, giants, balrogs, dragons, etc. you wouldn't be playing AD&D anymore. It should be noted that such "weirdness" does fall within the open-ended nature of the original D&D game.

Council of Wyrms allows dragons. DMG and MM combined explicitly allow for all the other examples. If you don't have a storm giant-pixie in the MM, you make it according to the rules laid out at the end of the MM. You then make it a PC race according to the rules in the DMG.

 

[Drowbane]

..<snip>..Council of Wyrms allows dragons...

Ahh!! nostalgia!

God, I loved CoW.

Now I'm thinking of starting a CoWish mini campaign...

As Red Wyrmling (swap out breath-weapon & immunity/vulnerability to preferance, but keep them all roughly equal in other ways) with a sort of gestalt... ECL 11 dragon with 11 levels of chosen class(es)...?